Interdisciplinary Studies

The Interdisciplinary Studies (IDS) designation provides a curricular home for courses which cross or move beyond the boundaries of traditional disciplines or which are taught beyond the boundaries of the Willamette University campus. Courses in Interdisciplinary Studies include the required College Colloquium, a wide variety of interdisciplinary junior- and senior-level courses, the Presidential Scholars Program, and courses taken on foreign study.

The IDS designation identifies on-campus or post-session courses that are characteristically interdisciplinary in orientation and are often taught by faculty drawn from several departments. This multi-perspective way of thinking prepares students to solve problems on the job and in other settings.

The FSTD (Foreign Study) designation is given to course credit earned through twenty-three Willamette University-sponsored international education experiences, including programs in England, Chile, France, Japan, Spain, Germany, Ecuador, and Ukraine. Titles and descriptions of these courses vary and are available on request.

This course may be taken up to 2 times (1 full credit) to count toward the Major or Minor.

Faculty

The Interdisciplinary Studies Area faculty is drawn from all departments of the College of Liberal Arts and varies from semester to semester depending on course offerings.

Course Listings

IDS 061X Model United Nations (.25)

A student-led, activity-based co-curricular class that culminates in an inter-varsity conference that stimulates diplomacy at the United Nations or other international bodies. Students learn about international affairs by adopting the role of diplomats representing a foreign country and articulating its foreign policy positions. They gain hands-on experience in researching their country's foreign policies and specific topics in international affairs, in learning rules of debate and other forms of preparation for the conference, and in intensive simulation of international negotiations in the conference.

Offering: Every semester

Instructor: Felker

IDS 062X (EV) Intercollegiate Debate (.25)

Preparation, practice and competition in debate. Students travel to tournaments on other campuses. Significant research is required.

General Education Requirement Fulfillment: Examining Values

Offering: Every semester

Instructor: Trapp

IDS 101 College Colloquium (1)

Topical seminars designed to pursue significant issues and questions of special interest to instructors and students. Seminars invite students into the intellectual life of the university, model rigorous engagement, and help them develop qualities of good scholarship -- effective writing, careful reading, critical thinking, and cogent argumentation. Seminars do not count toward majors or minors. Required for all entering firstyear students.

Offering: Fall

Instructor: Staff

IDS 102X Maximizing The Study Abroad Experience (.25)

This course is required for students accepted to study abroad through Willamette University. Students will attend pre-departure orientations, complete culture-learning assignments, complete an evaluation, and participate in a re-entry activity. The goal of the course is to prepare and assist the student in maximizing the learning potential of the study abroad experience. NOTE: Cannot take both IDS 102X and IDS 203.

Prerequisite: Must be approved by the International Education Committee to study abroad for at least one semester on a Willamette University Sponsored Program.

Offering: Every semester

Instructor: Lou

IDS 105 Transition to College Learning (.5)

Students will be introduced to the academic environment and culture of Willamette University, learning about the academic support/advising system, registration and degree planning, technology services and general strategies for a holistic approach to success as University students. In addition, students will explore what it means to think critically: how knowledge is acquired in a given discipline, the interpretation of data, logical reasoning, methods of analysis of ideas and the synthesis of one's arguments, problem solving, the scientific method, and modes of argument. Students will learn how to effectively use the Writing Center and the Hatfield Library, employ strategies for textbook reading assignments, take effective notes, meet expectations for academic writing, talk with advisors and professors, participate successfully in classroom discussions, and use effective time management strategies.

Offering: Fall

Instructor: Staff

IDS 107X Willamette Emergency Medical Service (.25)

This course provides credit for participation in Willamette Emergency Medical Services. WEMS provides EMS services to the Willamette community. This course offers continuing education through EMS drills, lectures and exercises that cover all aspects of emergency medical care at the EMT-Basic level. Topics that will be covered include, but are not limited to, trauma and medical assessment, blood pressure and pulse monitoring, respiratory management, basic first aid, CPR, and immobilization of bone/joint injuries. Students will complete a minimum of 5 (24 hour) shifts during which they will be available to respond to medical emergencies on campus. This course may be repeated up to four times for a total of 1 credit.

This course is designed for incoming WU international students to examine the role of culture in the US higher education system. Using cultural frameworks to structure their inquiry, students will analyze situations on the WU campus from their own cultural perspective and discuss their perceived similarities and differences. The framework will include such topics as individualism versus collectivism, high/low power distance, neutral/emotional expression, and internal/external focus of control. By focusing on this framework, students will be introduced to the academic environment and culture of Willamette University as they explore how academic systems, such as advising, academic support, registration and degree planning may be defined by cultural assumptions. The role of technology in this cultural context and intercultural implications within the classroom will also be considered. In addition, students will examine the student/professor/advisor relationship in terms of high context/low context communication styles and make implicit WU and US cultural values and assumptions explicit by gathering data through interviews, surveys and observational forms.

Prerequisite: First semester, degree-seeking and exchange international students only.

Offering: Fall

Instructor: Staff

IDS 123 (CA) Performance of Literature (1)

Study of the art of interpreting to an audience various forms of poetry and prose -- fiction, description, memoirs, folk tales -- through voice and gesture. Public presentation is a required part of this course.

General Education Requirement Fulfillment: Creating in the Arts

Offering: Alternate falls

Instructor: Clark

IDS 137 (QA) Quantitative Problem Solving for Science (1)

Students will develop and strengthen their ability to use mathematical reasoning to model the physical and natural world, and deepen their understanding of the connections between mathematical concepts and the physical processes described by those concepts. The course is designed for students taking, or planning to take, introductory science classes, particularly students who do not feel their problem solving skills were well developed by high school math classes. Students should be familiar with mathematical techniques at a level of algebra 2 and/or pre-calculus, but are not expected to have taken calculus.

The course focuses on the process and habits of mind needed to tackle unfamiliar problems, rather than on introducing students to new techniques. Topics will include: measurement (units and unit conversion, rate, concentration, intensive and extensive quantities); change and functional dependence (linear, polynomial, exponential and logarithmic); working with multiple unknowns (linear and non-linear systems); 2- and 3-dimensional geometry (coordinate systems, vectors, 2- and 3-dimensional trigonometry); and measurement statistics (random vs. systematic variation, scatter, uncertainty in the mean).

General Education Requirement: Quantitative Reasoning (no star)

Prerequisite: Consent of Instructor only

Offering: Fall semester

Instructor: Dewey Thorsett

IDS 138 (QA*) Introduction to Applied Statistics (1)

This course introduces students to the logic and procedures of descriptive and inferential statistical analysis as they applied in social and natural sciences. It emphasizes quantitative reasoning skills involving assessment of data quality, original analysis, careful interpretation of claims and effective communication appropriate to reading and preparing both popular press and scientific reports. Topics include correlation/regression, ANOVA, and selected non parametric procedures, with statistical software used to support systematic attention to graphical exploration, power, effect size, and confidence interval estimation. Applications will cover multiple disciplines but will give added attention to examples from the natural sciences.

IDS 142W (EV) What is a Just Society? (1)

This course engages students in a consideration of justice and the role of justice in the construction of politics. We will ask: what is a just society and how might justice be attained? Beginning with Plato's Republic, the students will read philosophers and thinkers from across many centuries. The students will enter into considered discussion of the human quest for justice in the seminar, with invited speakers, and in campus forums.

IDS 151 (TH) Reacting to the Past (1)

In "Reacting to the Past," students participate in role-playing games that enable them to relive important intellectual debates in three separate historical moments. In "Threshold of Democracy: Athens in 403 B.C.," students draw on Plato's Republic as well as excerpts from Thucydides, Xenophon, and other contemporary sources to debate the prospects for Athenian democracy in the wake of the Peloponesian War. In "Rousseau, Burke, and Revolution in France," students enter the intellectual and political currents that surged through revolutionary Paris in 1791. And in "Defining a Nation: India on the Eve of Independence, 1945," students participate in the struggle to reconcile religious identity with nation building, perhaps the most intractable and important issue of the modern world.

General Education Requirement Fulfillment: Thinking Historically

Offering: Every semester

Instructor: Russell

IDS 165W Journalistic Writing I (.5 credit)

This course will introduce students to the basics of journalistic writing. Topics will include story structure, news analysis, research, grammar, editorial columns and interviewing. Some attention will also be given to libel, journalistic ethics and layout. Writing Centered.

General Education Requirement Fulfillment: Writing-centered

Offering: Fall

Instructor: Hughes

IDS 167W Journalistic Writing II (.5 credit)

Continuation of Journalistic Writing I. Topics include covering speeches and meetings, ongoing coverage, crafting headlines, dealing with statistics and technical issues, writing profiles and editorials. The course gives specific attention to problems of multicultural sensitivity and mainstreaming, cliches and stereotypes, and it deepens the analysis of journalistic ethics begun in Journalistic Writing I. Ongoing attention to accuracy and to grammar, punctuation, and style. Writing Centered.

IDS 171 (CA) Exploring Contemporary Sculpture (1)

In this course students will explore interdisciplinary subjects like the body, consumerism, gender, identity, the environment, and political activism by studying the work of specific contemporary sculptors who engage these issues. The course will focus on three-dimensional artmaking since 1970 as intentional visual communication and as an expression of the cultural and historical context of its production. In this lecture course students will study the theories and laesthetics of contemporary sculpture, and learn how to analyze, interpret and critique contemporary sculptural work.

General Education Requirement Fulfillment: Creating in the Arts

Offering: Alternate Years

Instructor: Fourie

IDS 201W (EV) Topics in Interdisciplinary Studies (1)

An introductory, interdisciplinary, and writing-centered investigation of a controversial topic with national and/or international implications, which provides significant opportunities for students to analyze the reasons and arguments for adopting particular values or ethical stances over others. Students will critically examine both individual and community values within relevant historical contexts as well as within the framework of various disciplinary discourses and practices. Students will also analyze and debate significant conflicts between particular values and norms, while assessing the possibilities for resolution. May be repeated once for credit with a different topic. Offered periodically.

IDS 202 Convocation: Reflecting on Campus, Community and Cosmos (.5)

An action and reflection seminar resulting in the production of the University Convocation each week of the semester. Students will research issues that academia can and should address and invite to the University Convocation public intellectuals and artists who can speak to an educated general audience of students, faculty, staff and local citizens. Reading, discussions, conversations with faculty and community leaders will lead to the planning, publicizing, presiding and hosting of the University Convocation series.

Prerequisite: Sophomore standing or consent of instructor

Offering: Every semester

Instructor: Wallace

IDS 203W (EV) Intercultural Study within Cultural Immersion (1)

Course is designed to facilitate and promote the experiential learning process in an intercultural context. Introduces students to the value of cultural comparison that illuminates both similarities and differences. Improves the overall study abroad program by providing essential pre-departure and re-entry training designed to capitalize on the cultural immersion experience. Prepares students to learn from the psychological and conceptual challenges they will face during each phase of the experience. Examines the advantages and disadvantages of culture study, including the contrast of internal and external perspectives, and the concept of critical self-consciousness. Encourages and challenges students to continue learning about other cultures and other perspectives.

Prerequisite: Only students participating in an off-campus, cultural immersion program are eligible

Offering: Every semester

Instructor: Lou

IDS 205 Chemawa Indian School Partnership Program (.5)

This service-learning course introduces students to the history of and contemporary challenges in American Indian education. Students serve as tutors and mentors at the Chemawa Indian School of Salem in support of college preparatory programs, and in turn, are mentored by Native American adult educators. Tutoring will be on-site, covering basic academic subjects such as reading, math, science, and social studies. Mentoring will include hosting Chemawa students on the Willamette campus for academic and social events. May be taken up to 2 times (1 full credit) to count toward the Major or Minor.

Prerequisite: Consent of instructor

Offering: Every semester

Instructor: Dobkins

IDS 207X Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Training (.25)

This course is an introduction to CERT for those wanting to complete training or as a refresher for current team members. It contains six modules with topics that include an Introduction to CERT, Fire Safety, Hazardous Material and Terrorist Incidents, Disaster Medical Operations, and Search and Rescue. This course is a combination of 21 classroom and laboratory hours taught by a certified CERT instructor.

CERT is a program created to engage everyone in America in making their communities safer, more prepared, and more resilient when incidents occur. Community-based preparedness planning allows us all to prepare for and respond to anticipated disruptions and potential hazards following a disaster. Through pre-event planning, people work together to help reduce injuries, loss of life, and property damage. This pre-event planning also helps utilize existing resources until professional assistance becomes available.

Offering: Every semester

Instructor: Stout and various CERT certified instructors

IDS 208 (CA) Sustainability and Design (1)

This course is intended to introduce students to sustainability in design. This course will focus on fundamental concepts in design, sustainability practices, and communication practices between designers and users. The course will partner with the community to offer potential practical solutions in sustainability.

General Education Requirement Fulfillment: Creating in the Arts

Offering: Alternate Spring Semesters

Instructor: Steck

IDS 212 (EV) Child Trafficking (1)

This course examines child trafficking, or the movement of children for the purposes of exploitation. The course will take a case-study approach using readings and field experiences in a single country to examine the complex factors involved in both the perpetuation of, and attempts to reduce or eradicate, child trafficking. The course will address several forms of child trafficking, including sexual exploitation, forced labor, and child begging. Particular attention will be paid to specific historical, political, and structural features within the field country that enable or exacerbate child trafficking, as well as the relationship between governmental and non-governmental (including faith-based) responses to child trafficking.

General Education Requirement Fulfillment: Examining Values

Offering: Alternate years, Summer post-session

Instructor: Stevens

IDS 214 Food Justice Practicum (1)

Introduction to issues of food justice and food sovereignty globally and locally with a practicum component to include farm work and service learning on campus and community settings and partnership with Marion Polk Foodshare’s local food systems project.

Offering: Annually

Instructor: Staff

IDS 215 Willamette Academy Service Learning (.5)

This service learning course introduces students to issues of educational access and equity in the Salem-Keizer community. Students volunteer at Willamette Academy (WA) and, in turn, learn from and with the WA students, families, and staff. Tutoring will be on-site, covering basic academic subjects such as reading, math, science, and social studies. Mentoring involves hosting WA students on the Willamette campus for academic and social events. Additional volunteer opportunities will be available, subject to instructor's consent, based on volunteers' strengths and interests, and WA needs. Weekly class sessions, in general, will have two components: students will debrief their service experiences and study substantive topics dealing with educational access and equity, with specific attention to issues that historically underrepresented students face in gaining access to higher education. This course can be taken up to two times for a total of one course credit.

Designated as a Service Learning Course

Offering: Every semester

Instructor: Staff

IDS 220 (EV, NW) The Body in Science and Society (1)

This class will use exemplars from the history of anatomy, physiology, and medicine to examine the intellectual processes that underlie science as a way of understanding the world. In addition, students will be introduced to paradigms for making reasoned judgments about the moral consequences associated with various advances in human biological science.

General Education Requirement Fulfillment: Examining Values, Understanding the Natural World

Offering: Spring

Instructor: Harmer

IDS 222 (NW) Fundamentals of Neuroscience (1)

This course covers fundamental principles of the development, function, and occasional malfunction of the human nervous system, the methodologies, discoveries, and frontiers of this interdisciplinary area of inquiry. Lectures and mandatory laboratories are designed to challenge students to think in new ways about the relationship between brain, body, and behavior.

Prerequisite: Freshman or sophomore standing, or consent of instructor

General Education Requirement Fulfillment: Understanding the Natural World

Offering: Alternate springs

Instructor: Stavrianeas, Stewart

IDS 224 (NW) Disease Prevention (1)

This course will investigate the prevalence, etiology and social impact of several common diseases and disabilities as they relate to aging and physical inactivity. The class will specifically focus on the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases, osteoporosis, sarcopenia, diabetes, cancer, and both classic and current research publications. Students will additionally gain practical laboratory experience with common clinical tests used in the assessment and diagnosis of these disorders.

General Education Requirement Fulfillment: Understanding the Natural World

Offering: Annually

Instructor: Lockard

IDS 229 Topics in Cross-Cultural Studies: Japan, the United States, and the Pacific Rim (1)

Designed as an introduction in cross-cultural studies of the Pacific rim with particular focus on the United States and Japan, this course will explore topics like the environment and sustainability, social movements, economic and political development, or race and class in a comparative context. Students will critically explore and debate individual and community values manifested in these topics, and analyze the social, cultural, and historical forces behind those values. Half of the enrolled students in the course will be American Studies Program (ASP) students.

Offering: Fall semester

Instructor: Staff

IDS 230 (US) Rites of Passage in Japan and the United States (1)

This course focuses on the events of birth, marriage, and death as they are socially constructed by way of symbols, rituals, and myths. Initially, attention is directed to theoretical foundations and the constructs of symbol, ritual and myth themselves. Readings are drawn from anthropology, communication studies, linguistics, and sociology. Thereafter, focus turns to each of the events-birth, marriage, and death-and the ways that various cultures make them meaningful. The constructs examined earlier in the term are applied to selected case studies from Japan and the United States. Half of the students enrolled in the course are American Studies Program (ASP) students.

General Education Requirement Fulfillment: Understanding Society

Offering: Fall semester

Instructor: Fauss and TIUA Staff

IDS 243 Race, Racism, & Human Genetics (1)

What accounts for human difference, and what does the biology of human variation tell us about race and the "life changes" of racial groups in contemporary society? This course examines the relationship between genes, geography, skin color and what we have come to understand as "race." It will focus upon patterns of human genetic variation and consider how the completion of the Human Genome Project and the increasing availability of genomic data have changes our understanding of human population genetics. It will also address the historical role of science in taking the socially-constructed concept of race and turning it into scientific "fact," and explore how this past history both shapes and constrains contemporary research in the biology of human diversity. The course will consider contemporary case studies in which race becomes--and is ascribed to--biology in ways that both reflect and contribute to dominant racial ideology. By bringing together the research about race from the natural and social sciences, the course seeks to understand how biological and social factors interact to shape racial reality and explores the political and social implications for scientific inquiry.

IDS 252 (CA) 3D Animation (1)

Students learn and experience the process of computer animation production while also examining the work of professional animators (computer and traditional). Topics include story development, storyboarding, timing using story-reels, post-production, and computer modeling and animation using professional 3D animation software. Students work in teams to produce a complete computer animation. A key component of this course includes interactive work with students in MUSC 339 Digital Music Techniques to combine animation with original music.

Prerequisite: Students should be very comfortable working on the computer and learning new software

General Education Requirement Fulfillment: Creating in the Arts

Offering: Spring

Instructor: Orr

IDS 275 Theories of Career Development (.5)

An exploration into the theories, literature, and techniques in the field of career development and the impact of psychological, sociological, economic, and other variables on career decision-making, skills, interests, and values.

Offering: Every semester

Instructor: Houser

IDS 305 Medieval and Renaissance Studies Minor Colloquium (.25)

Monthly meetings for faculty and students in Medieval and Renaissance Studies that will include discussion of common reading materials, presentation of faculty and student research, workshop for development of faculty-student collaborative research projects, invited speakers, and support for student interdisciplinary research.

Offering: Every semester

Instructor: Boring, Hobgood, Moon DeLeonibus, De Mambro Santos

IDS 310 (NW) Agroecology (1)

This course covers the ecology of farm systems, from basic inputs of energy and fertilizer to complex interactions between farmed and wild land. Topics include the management of soil fertility, plant breeding, pest and weed management, and sustainability of organic and conventional farming systems. We will focus on scientific findings that are useful for farmers, but also explore how the scientific method can be used to answer new questions as they arise. The topics will be explored both through chapters from scientific textbooks and through writings by farmers themselves describing their farms and choice of farming practices. Farm systems considered will include traditional Native American farming, contemporary conventional and organic farms in the US, pre-industrial Chinese farming, contemporary sub-Saharan African farms.

General Education Requirement Fulfillment: Understanding the Natural World

Offering: Summer Institute in Sustainable Agriculture at Zena Farm

Instructor: Lindh, Johns

IDS 311 (US) Perspectives in Sustainable Agriculture (1)

A complex web of agricultural and food laws, historical and cultural practices, and economic and political factors influence what ends up on our plates and affects the health of our ecosystems, individuals, and communities. An interdisciplinary course exploring the historical, political, and ethical context of food systems and sustainable agriculture, this course utilizes Willamette's working farm at Zena in an intensive summer program. Through the analysis of texts, field experiences, discussions, and reflective writing, students will examine the historical foundations of agriculture, analyze the cultural structures, practices, and values that have shaped agriculture, evaluate the ethical implications in varying types of agriculture, and formulate their own ethnic of sustainability with regards to food and agriculture.

General Education Requirement Fulfillment: Understanding Society

Offering: Summer Institute in Sustainable Agriculture at Zena Farm

Instructor: Boring, Johns. Lindh

IDS 322 (IT) The Idea of Europe (1)

This course will examine the emergence and development of cultural identities in Europe, with a particular focus on the emergence and development of a conception of "Europe" and "European" from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. In order to understand these notions more clearly, it will be pertinent to study what was NOT Europe/European throughout this same time period.

General Education Requirement Fulfillment: Interpreting Texts

Offering: Alternate years in fall or spring

Instructor: DeLeonibus

IDS 323 Semester in Ireland (1)

Taught in Ireland during the semester in Galway program, this course examines selected topics in Irish literature, history, culture, politics, or the arts.

Offering: Spring

Instructor: Study Abroad Directors in Ireland

IDS 327W (EV) The American Story and the Legacy of Vietnam (1)

Language has become a problem in the modern world: its expanding role as a means of global communication has, at the same time, accented the barriers to human understanding posed by competing ideologies concealed within languages. As a result, power, rather than argument or persuasion, has become the normal means for achieving national and personal ends. This seminar addresses, through selected case studies, the relationship of language and power in the American tradition and their impact on politics and ethics. The Vietnam War is offered as a case study.

A three and one half-week course conducted in Japan in collaboration with our sister institution, Tokyo International University, as a part of an initiative on Asian Studies and the Environment. Formal activities will include classes in Japanese language and Japanese environmental history. In addition to readings and lectures, students will take part in fieldtrips and excursions to libraries and museums, municipal and prefectural offices, and other relevant sites where sustainability-related community activities take place, including forests, etc. Students will engage in volunteer and community-based service learning activities, and observe conservation practices where possible. Besides direct observation and reflection, students will participate in data collection, organization, and analysis.

A post-session field studies course centered in Ecuador at several geographical locations and focusing on topics related to the natural sciences, language and culture, the arts, sociology and political science. Emphasis will be on a historical and modern approach to study of the interrelationships among indigenous and Spanish-speaking groups, the interaction between culture and environment and the tremendous biological and geological diversity in Ecuador. It will also explore the impact of development, economics and land reform on the environment and its people.

IDS 343 Field Studies in Chicago (1)

This is a four-week off-campus program. It employs readings as well as guided tours of different racial and ethnic communities, the commercial centers, architecture and museums; explorations of the visual arts, music, theater; a service learning internship; and a seminar to investigate and reflect upon the complexity, diversity and problems confronting modern urban America from an interdisciplinary perspective. Arrangements are supported by the Urban Life Center in Chicago.

Offering: Post-session

Instructor: Staff

IDS 349 Advocacy Institute (1)

The Advocacy Institute is a two and one-half-week, intensive course of study abroad in which students learn to create persuasion in various forms, especially using film and new media. Each Institute is built around an important contemporary issue, such as sustainability, health care, or free speech, and the location in which the Institute is held varies with the focus for a given cycle. Each location is selected for its relevance to the topical focus, and students in the course actively engage in the local culture as part of the Institute curriculum. The forms of persuasion to be studied include film, photography, graphic design, new media, argumentation debate. The Institute utilizes a wide range of lectures, group discussion, service learning, field excursions, new media production, and debate tournaments. This program enrolls students from on and off campus, and interaction among individuals of varied nationalities and backgrounds comprises an essential dimension of the experience.

Offering: Annually

Instructor: Trapp

IDS 351W Culture of Ancient Greece (1)

A postsession course in Greece which includes field trips to museums and key archaeological sites to complement lectures and readings in the archaeology, culture, history, and rhetoric of ancient Greece. Examination of the geographical and cultural milieu of the classical Greek tradition as revealed in the art, architecture, and artifacts will enhance understanding of the rhetorical tradition exemplified in texts by Demosthenes, Aristotle, and Plato.

General Education Requirement Fulfillment: Writing-centered

Offering: Post-session

Instructor: Clark, Collins

IDS 352 Advanced 3D Animation (1)

An in-depth study of computer animation production that extends and expands on skills learned in IDS 252. Emphasis will be on story and character development. Additional topics include global illumination, skeletons, skinning, and kinematics. Students work as a group to produce an animated short with original music. A key component of this course is interactive work with students in music.

IDS 355 An Introduction to Opera (1)

Major works of European and American musical drama studied in their literary, theatrical and musical contexts. This course aims to enhance understanding and appreciation of opera through the study of libretti (playscripts), audio and video recordings and several live performances of great operas. No previous musical training assumed.

Offering: Spring

Instructor: Staff

IDS 381 College-Colloquium Peer Mentoring (.25-.5)

This activity-centered credit enables the student who has served as an Opening Days leader for a College Colloquium section to continue to serve as a co-curricular peer mentor for that section. Mentor works with program supervisor and faculty instructor, as appropriate, to develop and implement an ongoing plan of co-curricular programming and activities that enhances student learning. Mentor's roles can include facilitating small group projects, film viewing and discussion, coordinating service-learning off-campus, and providing informal advice and feedback to students on matters involving orientation to university life. May be repeated for credit.

Prerequisite: Prior participation as Opening Days leader

Offering: Fall Semester

Instructor: Douglass

IDS 390 Independent Study in Art, Technology, and Multimedia (.25-1)

This course is intended for the qualified advanced student who wishes to do an intensive independent study in an area not covered by an existing course in the Arts, Technology, and Multimedia minor. The course should focus on the use of technology in creating artistic works, and an appropriate department category should be identified. Arrangements must be made with a faculty member before registration.

Prerequisite: One starred course from the Arts, Technology, and Multimedia minor.

Offering: Every Semester

Instructor: Arts, Technology, and Multimedia faculty

IDS 396 Chemawa Indian School Partnership Program Internship (.5 or 1)

This internship is designed for students who have prior experience with the Willamette University Chemawa Indian School Partnership Program and desire to have more significant involvement with the Partnership. Specific internship placements at Chemawa may vary; examples include placement as AVID interns in Chemawa classrooms or as interns that support other elements of the Partnership such as the nightly tutorial program or the college readiness program.

IDS 410 Design Thinking (1)

Designed thinking is a proven process for practically and creatively solving problems. It is a field of study, communication and action that seeks to connect the diverse arts and sciences with each other and the purpose of enriching human life. The process of design thinking relies on cultivating an ability to see beyond the artificial constraints of status quo thinking to find opportunities for innovation based on their potential to create improvement. Students are coached in the design thinking process - a process that begins with qualitative research among a target population for whom the solution to a problem is sought, followed by "radical collaboration," a partnership between diverse thinkers, creators and consumers, who engage in iterative ideation, co-production, testing candidate solutions, and reflection on outcomes, until an acceptable improvement within a problem domain is found. The course adopts a different theme every time it is conducted. Such themes have included: developing living aids for the homeless and educational tools for kindergarten children.

Prerequisite: Consent of instructor

Offering: Spring

Instructor: Dwyer

IDS 413 Interdisciplinary Capstone Project (1)

A capstone experience for students with approved Special Majors who wish to undertake intensive independent research, writing, and/or creative work on a topic appropriate to the Special Major, normally to be offered as an independent study. The student must submit a proposal to the three Special Major advisors in the semester before the capstone project will be completed, accounting for a schedule of steps toward the complete project, work demanding at least 12 hours per week, and a presentation or public display of the final project.

Prerequisite: Junior or senior standing, and an approved special major

Offering: Annually

Instructor: CLA Faculty

IDS 489W Advanced Writing and Research (1)

This course is for juniors and seniors who wish to undertake intensive independent research and writing on a topic of their choosing, in order to gain experience managing a project with the length and complexity of a future senior capstone project. The Seminar will provide instruction in finding productive points of contact in research across disciplines (drawing on student's previous academic writing and class member interests), framing research questions, writing a research proposal, developing a methodology or theoretical approach, conducting library research, evaluating sources, and structuring a substantial essay. Seminar participants will write and revise their papers in stages, read and respond to papers of others, integrate feedback into their written work, and present a version of their final projects for a live audience.

General Education Requirement Fulfillment: Writing-centered

Prerequisite: Junior or Senior standing. Will complete a capstone project (senior thesis) within the following two semesters. ﻿Not currently enrolled in senior thesis hours. Consent of instructor.

Offering: Annually

Instructor: Newman Holmes

IDS 499 Presidential Scholars Program (1-4)

The Presidential Scholars Program permits selected seniors the opportunity to complete a substantial project of study, research, or creative work that will contribute to their academic growth. The Undergraduate Grants and Awards Committee selects scholars annually from the junior class on the basis of the strength of their proposed project, record of academic achievement, intellectual caliber, and independence of character. Presidential Scholars' projects will consist of a maximum of four credits in total, no more than three credits in a single semester.